Great News Everyone!

Last Night was a great night for me, quite a few of my normal glyph auctions and misc. resale’s sold, I also sold a Wispcloak. Over the past few weeks I have been selling one Wispcloak and one Deathchill Cloak about every 2 days, for around 485g. It only costs me around 100g (per) to make, so that’s  a little over 2k per week.

I would not recommend going to your tailor and cranking out a bunch of these to sell. Right now I make one of each and put them on the AH and don’t make any more until they sell.  So far it’s been pretty consistent, but I am on a high population server and most people are pimping out their high level alts right now.  Your server could be different and you don’t want to invest too much as this is a risky item.

Between Glyphs, the Cloak and misc. sales I made around 8k. Then as I was watching the Walking Dead and semi-monitoring trade I saw the most wonderful thing

Free Guild, 2 bank tabs – PST

I rushed to get it. I gquit my guild (which gave my GL a heart attack is it is my mains guild but I didn’t want to stop to type in case I missed it) and sent him a tell. I am now the Owner of a Guild Bank! Woot!

Previously, I spent loads of time in IF/SW trying to get signatures with 10-20g offers, but often time’s people would take my gold and run – my server is not very trusting so they wouldn’t sign before their gold was received. I got tired of being scammed so I figured with Cata on the way, smaller guilds would be liquidated and the member base consolidated into larger guilds to take advantage of the new guild perks – that’s exactly what happened here.

Now that I have doubled my storage space (haven’t bought more tabs – I am waiting until I need them) I spent the 8k I gained on some investments including

Ø  Iron Ore

Ø  Mithirl Ore

Ø  Mid Level Gems

Ø  Misc. Items that were too low price

Ø  Razzize Hatchling (3000g)

Ø  Orb of Deception (400g) 

Ø  A bunch of other items that I cant remember at the moment.

The Razzishi Hatchling  and Orb of Deception are going to sit in the bank a while, waiting for a good time to sell.  By this morning I am at a 8g loss for the week – but I am confident that I will be able to meet my goal of 40k by next Monday.  

Misc Gold Total & Recent Deals - Nov 8th edition

This weekend was very lucrative. First Friday night I stumbled upon 2 Glyph of Mage Armor for 80 g each, bought them and flipped for 400g each. I then found a pristine black diamond for 20g and sold it for 440g. Saturday my husband asked I run his druid through scholomance, and during the run I looted 2 pristine black diamond, which again sold for 440g.

Although I think I could have increased the price on the diamonds on my second go. Friday there were about 5 on the AH ranging from 550 to 430, so I picked 440g as my sell price. Saturday there were none so I could have kicked up the price to 600-700g but I was in a hurry when I posted the auctions.

Gold To Date: 32,175g

Friday I was around 29k, so between the deals I found and my normal auctions I broke the 30k mark. Not bad for my second month of serious auction housing, especially with the economy the way it is.

Week of 11/8 Schedule

This week the plan is to get the Paladin to level 58 so I can start outlands, to get herb and mining to minimum of 350, and to complete the stockpile of Vanilla materials for Blacksmithing.

Secondary Goal is getting Inscription to 300.

Current Investments:

My current investments are the materials for the +22 intellect enchants and +22 strength enchants, I want to have 50-60 of these stockpiled away for cata. Of course I am also on the lookout for Small Eggs, Woolen Cloth and Rugged Leather in preparation for the Feast of Winter Veil.

Misc. Farming

If/when I get tired of leveling the paladin, or if I have met my goal prior to the weekend, I will be farming twilight texts and essence of air in Silithus. The essence I plan to save for the agility enchants and the twilight texts to turn in for the rare recipes.

Gold Goal

40K – I want to have 40 k by next Monday 11/15

Nov. 8th – Leveling and Profession Status

Paladin Farmer

Ø  Level 50 (10 levels since Friday 11/5)

Ø  Herbalism – 300

Ø  Mining – 275

Notes: So far so good on my paladin, it was rough going with mining for a while as I kept finding mithirl before I was able to farm it. I enchanted my gloves with Advanced Mining, and that has helped me a lot so far.

Rogue – Inscription

Ø  Inscription – 200 – up from 0 since Friday 11/5

Notes: All the herbs I farmed on my Paladin went to leveling this characters inscription. I did have to invest 30 gold so far and get a few herbs from the AH, however I have made over 400g so far with just the glyphs and items created leveling to 200 so it was a worthy investment.

Priest – Blacksmithing

Ø  Blacksmithing – 0 – not trained

Notes: my priest is my current level 80 miner with epic flight so I am hesitant to remove her mining skill until my Paladin is up to par. I don’t want anything to interfere with my plans to mine come cata, so it’s better safe than sorry.

I do have quite a bit of ore saved up so far from leveling the Paladins Mining skill, about 400 copper ore, 300 tin, 40 silver, 120 iron, 40 mithirl and 25 truesilver so far. I am keeping it all as ore, that way what I don’t use can either be prospected or sold off, depending on what’s better.

I did however make a mistake in sending it to my priest in ore form, is should have left it on the paladin, as once I start learning blacksmithing the priest will not be able to make the bars. I think my brain was asleep when I sent it all.

What are you doing in preparation for Cataclysm?

This question is prevalent in the blog-sphere of pre-cata, every blog has tips and tricks and lists for what they are stockpiling, based on all the speculation of what items will be of high value with Cata’s Release.

Often the list is the same across the board:

>  Netherweave Bags

>  Netherweave

>  Raw Materials (gems, herbs, ore)

>  Items being removed (Pets, Tome of PolyTurtle,)

> The list goes on…

If you read any of the gold making sites, then you know most of this list already and I don’t want to repeat it. I am hesitant to stockpile or invest too much gold in these items and here is why.

 Over the past week I have gone to many of the most popular gold making blogs and reviewed their tips and stockpiling lists, noticing the trends between them all. If I went to this list, how many other people on my server are also going to do the same thing? Will the market be flooded with these same materials?

The thing every reader has to take into account when reviewing a gold blog, and what even the writers advocate, is that not all the tips are going to be shared. Each blogger is going to keep a few items or plans secret, that way they can avoid competition.

So, what am I stockpiling? The same things really but not in large quantities. I have been unable as of yet to purchase a guild bank or create my own guild (haven’t really tried), so with my limited space I tend to not horde things. What I am doing is getting my characters ready for the release and ready for the initial boom of Cataclysm Materials Prices. Just like the previous expansions before it, I expect the new ore, gems, herbs and cloth to explode when cataclysm hits as everyone rushes to get their mat profession and replace their now outdated gear with crafted items.

I decided to level my paladin (currently 40) to 80 and as she has both mining and herbalism. With her increased mount speed, I plan to spend the first few days of cata farming and supplying those people attempting Realm First with materials.

This helps me twofold:

1.    I get to take advantage of the initial crazy that is the material selling at the beginning of an expansion

2.    When I am done farming and decided to level my Main, most of the player base will be a few levels ahead of me and in different zones, so the questing area should be less crowded.

In addition to leveling my paladin I plan on power-leveling both Inscription and Blacksmithing, the two profitable professions I am missing in my retinue. I am sending my materials gathered while my paladin is leveling to the two toons who will be leveling new professions (Priest is getting blacksmithing – to replace mining; my Rogue is getting Inscription, to replace herbalism).

That way, once the initial crazy of materials is over and as the expansion progresses, I can utilize all the tradeskills to make profits. Just like WOTLK, I suspect that having multiple professions working together will net larger returns than having a single professional focus.

That is my current plan. I am missing out on some profits as old world materials are selling really well on my server as people stockpile, but it’s more important for me to set up my characters for the long term gains. Although to be honest, I am still doing my daily AH scan and looking for deals and potential items to stockpile – but only if the price is right.

Buy Low – Sell Normal, unless supply is limited – take risks, but don’t be too hasty.

“Buy Low – Sell High” is a standard economic statement that is easy to understand. Buying something below cost or as close to cost as you can, and selling for a higher price results in a profit margin.

However with wow, there are multiple items that can be supplied in great quantities and it’s almost impossible to control the supply of any one market. Buy buying low and selling at normal prices, you are almost guaranteed to sell your items and still make a profit.

Selling high can be beneficial, and there are times when you can make a larger profit, however with that comes risk. The higher your sell price, the greater the chance of the item being underbid or not bid on at all. This all depends on supply.

If the item you are selling is a limited supply or a highly sought after item, then an increase in price is a good risk to make. It is still a risk, but the chances of a sale are greater.

For non-limited supply items or items that are not in high demand, charging higher than normal prices can result in returned auctions and increased auction fees (some items have very high auction fees and multiple auctions of said item can result in a loss).

Making large profits depends on your knowledge of the current market, where the market is going and what kinds of risks you are willing to take. You also have to take into account the game and what the majority of players on your server are focusing on. In between raid releases? Reputation and Vanity items may sell more as players concentrate on other parts of the game. New Raid or Boss release? Items needed for raiding may increase. Holiday? Items needed for holiday quests and achievements should spike in price.


Keeping all this in mind is one of the things you need to do to become a successful Auctioneer.

Welcome to The Golden Muse, a world of warcraft blog by yours truly, Cindia

My gaming career and gold making career started in Ultima Online where I loved setting up my vendors and exploring other people’s vendors for underpriced items and flipping them for profits, or farming with my pack of frenzieds. I stopped UO for Everquest, and my passion for profits fell as I had to contend with the EQ economy (was not friendly toward new or starting players).

I started wow a few months after its initial release and I now look back and laugh at my nativity. I remember looking at people in blues and epic mounts in awe, never dreaming that I would be able to afford the 100g epic mount.

I made lots of mistakes in my early wow career, first was not utilizing the auction house. I didn’t even know it was there until 6 months into playing. Once I knew it was there I didn’t really think of it as a valid source of income.

Another mistake I made was selling or vendoring items that if sold on the auction house would have netted me a nice profit (I once vendor’d the Parrot Cage (Hyacinth Macaw), I thought it was ugly and this was back when pets where actual items). Most of this behavior continued through vanilla and into BC.

When BC was in full throttle I found my interest waning in Raiding, but I still wanted to play wow so I started an Alt Draenei mage, as I leveled I found items of worth and actually started posting them on the AH. The profit I was returned was amazing and I was soon surprised that my little level 40 mage had more gold than my level 70 raiding priest. The Auctioneer in me was born.

With WOTLK launch the little mage became my main and I decided to start reviewing the AH more and actually make gold with the AH, but I was bombarded with leveling and raiding and didn’t have much time.

The last 6 months I have remedied that. I now am making gold consistently and I have my fingers in lots of pies. I spend lots of time reviewing gold making blogs to compare ideas and see other methods other people use to see if they can be applied to my server and my markets.

With Cataclysm a month away, I decided it was time to become a serious competitor in the Auction House on my server, and see if I could reach the new gold cap of 1 Million Gold.

Therefore I decided to start a blog and chronicle my progress and report my thoughts, tips and mistakes along the way.